


Love Don't Grow On High Dragons

by EvoIIICE9A



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 07:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4696625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvoIIICE9A/pseuds/EvoIIICE9A
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saying "I love you" and "I want to be with you" is not always enough. Sometimes you need to present your Qunari partner with a gift of a dragon's tooth. When you are not exactly fond of dragons, that might be something that is easier said than done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Don't Grow On High Dragons

Dragons, ugh, how he despised dragons. Oh he didn’t care that they were forms of The Old Gods, the Archon could keep that hodge podge to themselves and he would never have to worry about coming near one. Or two. Or three. Or four. Seriously, was there there a sparkler strapped to his back spraying out glorious flashy marvels that made him noticeable over the other mages in the party? Was he so flamboyant and rememberable that every time they encountered a High Dragon he had to be there for it? Bring the Tevinter Mage along, yes, because his people worshiped dragons so evidently he wanted to see one up close.

Speaking of up close, abhorrent dragon, what are you looking at? There was something creepy about the dead, the grand beast’s golden orb vacantly staring at him from where it fell.

His hand quivered on his staff, the only thing keeping him from falling face first into the dirt, completely depleted of all his energy with the seemingly endless battle taking its toll. “Someone owes me a bottle of Orlais’s finest once we return,” he called out to the ones walking away from him, probably going to lick their wounds. Swords, knives, such primitive weapons. Not everyone could be blessed with natural talent.

… But now that they were out of his general proximity, he could turn his focus back towards it, staring at the half snarling jaw. My, my Mister High Dragon. What beautiful teeth you have.

_“You take a dragon’s tooth and split it in half. Both you and the other person wear it so wherever you are, you will always be bonded with the other.”_

_“Does it have to be a dragon? What about a Wyvern? Surely that is close enough to it. Think of it like one of those quaint imitation jewelry that commoners get when they can not afford the real thing.”_

_“Ha! Trust a Vint to put someone’s eternal bond down to a cheap knock off.”_

_“Nothing wrong with an inferior product sometimes.”_

“Too bad you can’t buy this detritus from a merchant”, he scoffed aloud, coming out of the flashback of that discussion.

Let's face it, bonds don’t last forever, sometimes they were never there to being with, his own parents were his illustrious role models. Must have been down to sentiment or some slop like that. I put my life on the line to get this, that's how much you mean to me, blah blah blah. Wait, so why was he considering doing this again?

As much as he was sure that he would end up staring down at plenty more dragons in his near future, when the opportunity presented itself, it was best to seize it by the horns so to speak. Although opportunity, horns and seizing had happened on more than one occasion which is how he ended up in this predicament. Then sometimes, those horns and those mighty, rugged, manly hands would seize him and… whoa, sidetracked.

Back in and focused. The question would be how would he get one of those teeth out? Perhaps a carefully timed forcible fireblast it could pop right out of there? Burn away some gum? Half of its face? Whatever the method would ultimately be, he wasn’t going to be hitting nothing but air at this distance.

The walk towards the downed beast was slower than he wanted, using his staff as a crutch, a little hobble in his step. A good soak in a tub would be in order to rest these weary muscles. As he inched ever so closer, a good gust of breeze hit him in the face, almost crippling him to the ground and it was not by the seizing of his body. “Maker’s breath, what is that ghastly stench?”

Wind, no, that was foul wafting smell straight from the dragon’s mouth. Smelt like it had a hundred dwarfs festering inside of its belly that had been thrown up, left in the sun to permeate for a good month and then re-swallowed where it was left to putrefy some more. This is what happens when you live on an all meat diet. There was no other way to approach this than a hand over his face, smothering his nose and mouth and a willing of his body to pick up the pace to get it done quickly before be vomited in his hand. There would be nothing he could ever come up against that would reflect this hell. All for a stupid tooth! Seriously, why would his people ever think it was wise to worship these things?

Okay, close enough now for attacking. Now here were the choices he had. One, use his staff to amplify the attack which would draw more attention to himself but it would be over and done with quickly. Two, drop the hand from his face and use that to generate the magic for the attack which may take a couple of attempts but more incognito. Three, both hands, more power, may pass out from the stench and draw some attention but a condensed attack may pop it out with one shot. Hmm, or there was option four which he opted for. Taking his staff, he angled it and rested it between one of the spikes on his jowl, using the dent to hold it upright, freeing up the other hand to weld all the magic he needed and still keep his face covered.

Channeling, channeling, calling to the body to bring forth the marvels and the blessing that life bestowed upon him and his valiant bloodline. Prove your worth as a powerful adversary, a great Atlus Mage that would put the fear into any Old God, dead or not. Alakazam! Fireball now!

Poot.

Oh well geez, that had never happened before. The great flash of fire that he was expecting was nothing more than a puny sniff of smoke, not even enough of a flame to light a candle. P-Performance issues? Maybe it was because he was under pressure? No Pavus was going to be made a fool in front of a once-deity like this. Sucking it up for the cause, the hand was removed from his face, gagging once, quickly recovering and drawing all the energy he could muster, concentrating and intensifying it between both hands.

“Vile creature, I commanded you back to the Fade!”

Frrnt.

Oh come on! The flame that generated was enough to singe a single hair, nothing more. His energy, mana, whatever the internal energy source that fuel his abilities was called, had diminished to a fart of its former self. Hmm, too bad there was not a Templar running around with them, he may have stood a chance of wrangling some Lyrium out of them. Just a small hit, that would be enough. Oh! Maybe he had some Lyrium potion in his battle pouch! Good idea to check on that and.. of course, all gone! Whoever was in charge of battle requisitions would need a serious word to when he got back.

A long frustrated huff, his arms akimbo, mouth wrinkling up to a scowl. Magic was off the cards so what option did he have left? Dive on in there and pull it out? Ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. There would be no chance that he could use his bare hands to wrangle that out of his gums… unless he was lucky enough with the amount of blows that the beast faced that one of the teeth could have been knocked loose… hmm. 

As much as he never thought he would become desensitized to that offensive smell, it was slightly dissipating the longer he was near it. Time to get his hands dirty, ugh, had he mentioned how much he hates dragons? Now he was about to get up close and personal with it. Over the left, over the right, a quick glance to make sure that none of his party were about to witness this. A deep breath in, quick exhale out and then attack! One bound upwards and arms latched around to the slight top of the tooth that he could see, having to jump up and koala cling to it with his sheer size. Feet rooted into his lip, frantically pulling back, grunting and cursing, putting all of his muscle behind it. Stupid. Tooth. Why are-... so stuck… Get out of there! Heave, heave, heeeeeeeeeeeeeave.

No luck at all. He would have thought just his body weight alone dangling off a top rooted tooth would have been enough to make it give way. Well, guess what? He was not the type to give up so easily so back up there he went. Take two all the way through to five were failures, take six he thought he felt it budge but it turned out it was his dragon drool saturated hands that helped him lose grip, tumbling down onto his butt. Chest heaving heavily out of breath, the sweat trickling down his brow from the exertion. There was no getting this thing out. Maybe this tale about a dragon tooth was all some kind of Qunari joke and someone out there was relaying all of this back to him, telling him how he was making a complete ass of hi-...

“What are you doing…?”

“Sweet maker!” he gasped, scrambling up to his feet from the shock. His racing heart was just jolted to double to speed, aging a good ten years at the same time. “Inquisitor, at least give a sign before you approach. Perhaps a loud cough.”

Picking himself up off the ground and dusting the back of his battle robe, his head was held up high, acting all regal and important, trying to pass off that he was caught in a messed up state. 

“Is this some sort of strange Tevinter worshiping ritual?”

Oh right, she asked a question. Right. What kind of an excuse could he give that didn’t involve the truth? “Corypheus had ties to the Tevinter Imperium and we used to believe the Old Gods took form inside of High Dragons. So in by getting a specimen of one, I could study it and help to find some information that may give us a tactical advantage over him.” Like she is going to agree to that cock n bull story he just gave. Her face showed nothing but disbelief. “... Or I could be preparing to perform Blood Magic.” Really brain, you just came up with that?

A laugh, oh that was a good sign. Obviously she didn’t believe him at all on the Blood Magic front and thought he was joking about it. Oh wonderful, whatever it was maybe this would be a good time to ask… “Could I borrow your sword? You know, to cut off some of the dragon’s… bits.”

Such an unquestioning, beautiful woman, without any complaint she unsheathed her sword and handed it to him. Always trust the Inquisitor to have his back, sweet, sweet-... whoa! She had him around the scruff of the neck, dragging him past the boundaries of personal space, getting right up in his face.

“Seriously, if you even think about doing Blood Magic, I will kill you.” came the ominous words in a very deep scowl.

The hold loosened, completely letting go with a sweet, almost innocent smile and then the sword thrust into his hand. Andraste, you chose one terrifying woman. He didn’t know to thank her or pass off what he said as a joke, instead he opted for silence, turning attention back to the dragon. Now here was the fun part. Should he just stick the tip of it in or should he take one mighty swing at it? He was not designed to swing this archaic arsenal around. One thing for sure is that top tooth was out of reach and the bottom would have to be the one, the only problem was it was covered with a very tough outer layer of scales.

No point holding off on it. Another exhale preparing himself, he jumped up and grabbed the bottom lip, feet just dangling off the ground against using his body weight to pull the skin down. When it didn’t budget he dropped down, looking at the sword and then looking back at the lip. If he made incisions in the scales, he could peel it down and gave the easier access to the softer spongy flesh. Pure genius. He would have thought with the amount of death he had seen recently that he would not be squeamish to the sight of blood. So not true, feeling a slightly woozy watching the blood rolled out of the fresh cut, his belly deeply growling in nausea. Ranged attacks, how awesome they were. All of the carnage happened at a distance so he was able to walk away in the pristine condition he went in as. Oh Maker, some blood squirted on him. Nothing was going to get that out. Okay, the lip was exposed now, there were on the home stretch.

With one hard stab, the sword embedded straight into the gum, a little wriggling of it around and… holy shit, did that just move!? The dragon just move!? Pulling the sword out and holding it up high in what he could have assumed was a defensive position, his eyes grew wider as he watched the top jaw open up and the muffled roar moving its way from the throat, almost deafening him as it fully escaped.

GOD. DAMN. FUCKING. DRAGON! JUST. FUCKING. DIE! In a frenzy he swung the sword around, hacking and slashing at anything he could to keep himself safe. How was it still alive!? How!? It was very dead, very very dead and now it was moving and probably really pissed off. He cut its lip open, he stabbed it many times and now he would be a taste snack, swallowed in full, let to rot with the hundred of revolting digesting dwarfs already burbling away in his stomach.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Dorian, it’s dead.”

“It’s dead!?” the mage repetitively exclaimed loudly, pointing at the dragon. “It _fucking_ moved!”

“Dead things sometime move after they pass on. Nervous system and gases, normally we don’t stay around long enough to see this happening.” And obviously her sword was not in rational hands so she would just take that back. No, no, your sword privileges have been revoked.

Seriously, did he ever mention how much he FUCKING HATED HIGH DRAGONS!? … Why was he feeling warm? Looking down at himself, he was horrified to see himself sprayed in blood, looking like a murder scene victim. Blood, chunks of flesh, scales, whatever that unidentified mass was. All of it exploded all over his clothes and face.

“I believe this is what you are after?” she smugly grinned, shoving large tooth into his hands. “Don’t worry, it’s already pre-sliced. Now _you_ can buy _me_ a bottle of Orlais’s finest to make up for this.”

All of this for a stupid tooth.

“Here, take this damn thing,” he huffed in a tizzy, thrusting the fragmented dragon tooth into the horned man’s hand.

“Err, why does it look like it was pieced back together?”

Maybe that was because the tooth that was given to him was the recipient of the onslaught of a thousand cuts and when he went to split it, it fell part into about ten pieces. There was no chance in this world that he was going to go back and try that again. That question was ignored, the perplexed look he was receiving was ignored and dammit, he just went through hell for this horrid man for some kind of bizarre testament of love so he would ignore whatever the hell he wanted to! Turning on the ball of his foot, he strutted out to get out of his blood soaked clothes, get that bath and you bet for sure he was going to get himself a stiff drink.

“I hate dragons… and you owe me a foot rub!”


End file.
